But I don’t want you to create just any budget. I want you to create one with the Policy of Joint Agreement as your guide. When it’s completed, you’ll have come a long way toward resolving one of the most common types of conflict in marriage—financial conflict. A budget helps you determine in advance what you expect to earn and how you plan to spend it. When you come to an enthusiastic agreement regarding that plan, and then follow it, very few individual financial conflicts emerge because you’ve settled them in advance.
So the first step in learning how to resolve conflicts over financial management is to create a budget that you can agree to enthusiastically. If you have never created a formal budget to determine how your income is to be spent, you should begin with a household budget form that is readily available in bookstores or online. It should contain at least seventy categories of income and household expenses.
You may download free of charge the budget form I’ve written if you wish. It’s in the questionnaires section of the MarriageBuilders.com website under the title “Financial Support Inventory: Needs and Wants Budget.” As you’ll discover, though, it does more than just help you create a budget. It also helps you meet the need for financial support.
The Anatomy of a Budget
A budget has two basic parts: the income section and the expenses section. The income section of the budget is usually the easiest part to agree upon, especially if it’s a fixed amount. But if your income changes from month to month, there may be some conflict over whether to estimate your income optimistically or pessimistically. I suggest that you use a low estimate with a contingency plan for how to spend money earned over that amount. That way you’re covered if your income is not as much as you had hoped it would be, but you also have a plan for how to spend any extra income you receive. Include all income before any payroll deductions and then show those deductions as an expense.
Then comes the hard part. Where is that income to be spent? If you are like most couples, you are not earning as much money as you would like to spend, and each of you will have different priorities.
So I recommend that each of you complete your own copy of the budget first so you can be aware of the conflicts that exist (e.g., one of you would like to spend a thousand dollars for Christmas gifts and the other feels that two hundred dollars should be sufficient). The budgets must balance, so your initial budgets should not have you spending more than you’ve earned. They should also include current commitments. What are essential costs and what are discretionary costs? Once-a-year expenses, like insurance and Christmas gifts, should be prorated each month so that the funds will be there to pay them when they come due.
After you have your two budgets to compare, you are ready to discuss all conflicts that you find. How will you reconcile them?
First, remind each other that your conversation must be pleasant and safe if you are to come to an enthusiastic agreement. And also remind each other that the default position on the Policy of Joint Agreement is to do nothing. If you can’t come to an enthusiastic agreement, the money for that category should remain in your checking account unless you can arrive at a temporary agreement you can both accept enthusiastically.
Second, discover each other’s opinions about the issue respectfully to understand what kind of a solution would work for both of you. Granted, there are some who simply don’t want to spend any money—they’re tightwads. The default condition, not doing anything, is precisely what they want. I’ll address that problem in chapter 16. But most couples try to find common ground when they respect each other’s perspectives.
The third step is to brainstorm—think of solutions that might make both of you happy. If you can’t think of anything immediately, let the problem incubate for a day or two, and then come back to it again. It’s amazing what your brain can do when you give it a chance to process information for a while.
Finally, take the fourth step by finding a solution that you can both agree to enthusiastically. Again, I want to remind you why I want you to find enthusiastic agreements as opposed to reluctant agreements. Enthusiastic agreements create a lifestyle that deposits love units in both of your Love Banks, while reluctant agreements create one that makes withdrawals for at least the spouse who is reluctant. If you want to be in love, don’t settle for reluctant agreements.
You will find that your enthusiastic agreements regarding your budget will set a standard for financial decisions in the future. While reluctant agreements must be renegotiated every time a conflict arises, an enthusiastic agreement usually ends further discussion. You will know what to do whenever the problem arises. Enthusiastic agreements may take longer to discover than reluctant agreements, but they lead to far less negotiating overall. And as your negotiating skills improve, when new financial conflicts arise you will be able to resolve most of them very quickly.
Men and Women Interpret the Goals of Financial Management Differently
When one spouse makes financial decisions without accommodating the perspective of the other, love units are lost. It’s that simple. But when financial decisions are made with the feelings of both spouses in mind, it’s a wiser plan that also builds the feeling of love.
So if you want to be wise and build your love for each other, you should have a budget that takes the interests and feelings of both of you into account. Every item in that budget should be subject to mutual enthusiastic agreement, and you should stick to what you’ve agreed to do unless you want to reopen budgetary negotiation.
But in making that budget, you’ll probably find that your priorities will be different. In general, women want their limited financial resources to be spent for security, while men want it spent for enjoyment. The wife may want to spend more on the support and care of the family than the husband does, while the husband may want to spend more on recreational interests than his wife does.
Since few of us have the resources to buy everything we would like to have, there comes a time in every couple’s life when priorities must be set. And the conflicting financial goals of a husband and wife can make coming to an enthusiastic agreement on every budget item very difficult.
If you face a conflict over how to budget your income, begin with the assumption that there is some truth in both of your perspectives. The wife who wants the budget to support the security of the family is defending a very important value. But so is the husband who wants the budget to cover recreational expenses. It’s not an either-or issue. You should want to find how both can be achieved.
What If She Has an Emotional Need for Financial Support?
As I mentioned earlier, you are welcome to download our free Needs and Wants Budget. But as soon as you see it, you will notice that it suggests a different approach to budgeting than the one I just outlined, which simply guides you to a fair budget agreement. The Needs and Wants Budget does more. It’s designed to meet a wife’s need for financial support.
Whether you decide to simply find agreement on a fair budget or one that meets her need for financial support (but is also fair) will depend on whether or not one of her most important emotional needs is financial support. That can be determined by completing the Emotional Needs Questionnaire found in appendix B and also in the questionnaires section of the MarriageBuilders.com website.
If you discover that she has a need for financial support, I encourage the wife to complete the first draft of the budget that I call the Needs Budget. Only the husband’s income is to be included in that first draft. I make that recommendation for a very important reason. If a woman has an emotional need for financial support, when her husband supports her and their children financially, he makes considerable deposits into her Love Bank. By completing the first draft of the budget using only his income, she is able to express precisely how she would like that need for financial support to be met by him. When a husband’s income covers the amounts she lists in the Needs Budget, by definition he meets her need for financial support.
When a man first hears of this rec
ommendation, he often thinks that his wife will be writing the entire budget. There will be nothing left for anything he needs. What happened to the Policy of Joint Agreement?
But in the many years that I have encouraged couples to follow this procedure, I have yet to find a wife who made her budgetary requirements unreasonable or completely out of reach of her husband. And it gives him plenty of opportunity to negotiate for what he would like to buy. Remember, this is the first draft, not the final budget.
After the Needs Budget is completed by the wife, both husband and wife add expenses to the next draft, the Wants Budget. These are expenses that the husband feels he needs that have not been included in the first draft, as well as other things he might want. Since the wife has already expressed her needs, she adds her wants to this second draft. And this time, her income is included.
Now comes the negotiating. If you are like almost all other couples, your needs and wants will far outstrip your joint income. So you should both agree enthusiastically on the final draft, which I call the Affordable Budget.
Put special emphasis on trying to include the expenses that the wife wrote into the first draft. And make sure that the husband’s income covers those expenses. If that cannot be achieved with enthusiastic agreement, it means that her emotional need for financial support is not being met with your new budget. It also means that you should focus your attention on how that need can be met in the future. In His Needs, Her Needs, the companion to this book, I explain (in chapter 9—Financial Support) how important it is to meet a wife’s need for financial support, and how that can be achieved with enthusiastic agreement.
But if the wife’s need for financial support as described in the Needs Budget is covered by the husband’s income, the remainder of the budget process is a matter of reconciling what remains of his income, and her income, with expenses that they both would like to add.
The final product, the Affordable Budget, may take you a while to finalize. In the meantime, remember the default condition of the POJA: Don’t spend anything until you both agree to it enthusiastically. If you can’t come to an agreement within a few weeks, find a mediator to help you think of creative alternatives.
One more cautionary remark is in order. Just because you’ve hammered out a budget with enthusiastic agreement doesn’t mean that you’ll be enthusiastic about it once it’s implemented. The Policy of Joint Agreement applies to everything you do, but what you plan to do may not turn out the way you expected. You may be very unenthusiastic about the result. So when your budget is actually used as your guide to spending, and you find that it isn’t working out as you had hoped, go back to negotiating with your new experience to help you make adjustments.
Remember, your spending should make Love Bank deposits in both of your Love Banks. If that’s not happening, changes are in order.
Consider This . . .
Create a budget that you both accept enthusiastically and that you are both willing to follow. If the wife has expressed a need for financial support, use the “Financial Support Inventory: Needs and Wants Budget” worksheets in the questionnaires section of the MarriageBuilders.com website, which can be copied without charge.
After creating a budget, do you and your spouse still have conflicts over financial management? Describe your conflicts as clearly as possible, and show respect for each other’s opinions and perspective. Then, use the Policy of Joint Agreement and the Four Guidelines for Successful Negotiation to find a solution that accommodates the interests of both of you.
Do your financial decisions seem to make money a higher priority for you than your love for each other? How does the POJA always remind you to make each other your highest priority?
11
Conflicts over Children
I began this book with an example of a typical marital conflict: Tony and Jodi couldn’t agree on who would get up at night to calm Emily down when she started crying. Their failure to come to an enthusiastic agreement about that simple problem had a domino effect that almost led to their divorce.
If unresolved conflicts over everyday childcare responsibilities can lead to divorce, imagine what unresolved conflicts over child training and discipline can do to a marriage. Most parents know that the decisions they make about the moral and educational development of their children have a far greater effect on their ultimate happiness and success than decisions about who gets up with them at night. And when parents can’t agree on the goals and methods of child training, it’s bound to tear a couple apart.
If parents do not see eye to eye in the way children are to be raised, children become experts in using the “divide and conquer” strategy. You tell your son that he can’t go out with his friends until he has made his bed and cleaned up his room. Then your spouse says that it’s okay for him to go out this time, but he has to clean his room tomorrow. When one spouse tries to take control of raising children, and the other doesn’t agree with those rules, the children learn very little about how to become successful in life. The lessons their parents try to teach them are judged to be anyone’s guess because even the parents can’t agree. So they go to their peers, other children, for advice—a notoriously poor source of wisdom.
But unilateral childrearing decisions do more than create confusion in children. They are also very offensive. Have you ever felt that your spouse has not supported you in the way you want to raise your children? It’s a very common complaint in marriage and a huge source of Love Bank withdrawals. When parents don’t agree on what a child should do, or how to punish a child for disobedience, a unilateral decision by one spouse is almost certain to make withdrawals in the other spouse’s Love Bank. The one trying to protect the children often feels the pain of the discipline more acutely than the children do. But the one doing the disciplining can also be offended. He or she feels abandoned and unappreciated.
It’s also a mistake to grant favors to children without mutual agreement. If one spouse gives something to a child that’s not approved by the other spouse, the disapproving spouse can sometimes look like the evil parent who doesn’t care enough about his or her children to give them what they really need. Unilateral giving of favors by a parent can sometimes cause as much resentment in marriage as unilateral discipline. It’s unfair to characterize your spouse as unloving simply because you disagree about how to care for your children.
It’s a mistake to reward or punish your children when your spouse does not agree with you with enthusiasm. If your spouse does not support your form of training, your children will not learn much from it. And you’re sure to withdraw love units whenever that happens.
Spouses with Blended Families Face a Particularly Difficult Challenge
My wife, Joyce, found small children to be very annoying when she was a teenager. She avoided babysitting. So when we married, I wasn’t quite sure how she would handle our own children, or if she would even want to have any.
When our children did arrive, Joyce turned out to be a terrific mother. She was very patient with her own children—and grandchildren. But she still finds other people’s children to be annoying.
That’s part of the problem faced in blended families where at least one spouse has a child from a different relationship. It’s tough enough to raise your own children, but your spouse’s children can make the task seem impossible. The resentment that grows from a couple’s failure to agree on childrearing decisions wrecks the vast majority of these marriages. Very few of them survive.
In blended families, independent childrearing decisions usually have a much greater negative effect on Love Bank balances than they do in nuclear families (where children are the offspring of both parents) because spouses have a natural instinct to protect their own at all costs. Any unilateral punishment by a stepparent is usually met with the natural parent’s very angry defense of his or her child.
Each spouse in a blended family tends to put his or her own children’s interests first. It’s usually in an effort to compensate for th
e trauma their kids experienced at the death of a parent or a divorce. The guilt parents feel for having deprived their children of the advantages of a nuclear family often causes them to give them whatever they want. Discipline goes down the drain.
There’s an additional problem that occurs when the original family’s breakup was due to divorce rather than death—divorcing parents have set a very bad example for their children of how to behave. Rather than teaching their children by example to be considerate of others, one or both parents have proven to be so thoughtless that their love was destroyed, thus ending the marriage. As a result, their children learned that it’s “every man for himself.”
So if you’re part of a blended family and you don’t want your children interfering with your love for each other, and don’t want to end up divorced, you should make all of your childrearing decisions with mutual and enthusiastic agreement. All disciplinary action and rewards should be decided before you implement them. Then your discipline will be taken seriously, neither of you will become the evil parent, and you’ll be making Love Bank deposits instead of withdrawals.
Men and Women Interpret the Goals of Raising Children Differently
What’s a more important goal in raising children, obedience or knowing that they are loved? We’d all agree that they’re both important, but if a decision must be made to achieve one and not the other, which would you choose?
In general, women tend to want their children to know that they are loved more than they want them to be obedient, and men tend to want them to be obedient more than they want them to feel loved.
How about learning to be self-reliant? Do you want your children to earn their allowance, or do you give it to them with no strings attached? Men tend to stress working for what you need, while women tend to want the need to be met one way or another.
He Wins, She Wins Page 8
